Bill Linnane: Kids, Time, and Lost in Translation
Listening to your children conversing purely through references to AI-generated memes can leave you wondering if you’re having a brain attack
The older you get, the harder it is to stay abreast of the strange quirks the digital zeitgeist spits out. Photo: Getty
I try to keep up with youth culture. It could be trying to figure out what “skibidi Ohio rizz” means, investigating the cold case killing of John Pork by Tim Cheese, or even becoming conversationally fluent in Italian Brainrot, or its Irish equivalent featuring such AI-generated nightmares as Barry the Barry’s Tea Box, who has two oversized feet, a very sad face, a tea box for his body, and no arms.
I usually stumble on to these weird internet phenomena because the kids start conversing with each other using only references to these memes, repeating the same nonsense phrases to each other as they play video games, leaving me to wonder if I have suffered some sort of brain attack and have lost my ability to comprehend language.